ENVIRONMENTAL-STRESS IN A MEDIEVAL POPULATION OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY

In this paper we analyze the effects of certain sociocultural and envi ronmental factors (migration, insufficiency of resources, social confl ict) on the health, morbidity, growth, and adaptation of a human popul ation from Northern Spain. Our study was centered on a 9th-century med ieval population in the Basque Country, Los Castros de Lastra (hencefo rth ''Los Castros''). The area in which this population settled suffer ed intense social conflict during the Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The dental pathologies encountered, along with stress indi cators (enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, growth of the long bones) show frequencies in Los Castros different from those of other populat ions. This skeletal evidence can be directly related to environmental factors. Particularly important among such conditions are scarcity of resources in a desolate land, the fact that the population had been re cently settled, and the persistent sociopolitical conflict.